But vainly, vainly, may he shine, Where Glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine; That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallowed tomb! Deep graved in every British heart, O never let those names depart! Say to your sons,-Lo, here his grave, To him, as to the burning levin, Short, bright, resistless course was given; Was heard the fated thunder's sound, Till burst the bolt on yonder shore, Rolled, blazed, destroyed, and was no more. Nor mourn ye less his perished worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth, And launched that thunderbolt of war On Egypt, Hafnia,* Trafalgar ; * Copenhagen. Who, born to guide such high emprize, For Britain's weal was early wise : Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, For Britain's sins, an early grave; And brought the freeman's arm to aid the freeman's laws. Had'st thou but lived, though stripped of power, A watchman on the lonely tower, Thy thrilling trump had roused the land, When fraud or danger were at hand ;. By thee, as by the beacon-light, Our pilots had kept course aright; As some proud column, though alone, Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne. Now is the stately column broke, The beacon-light is quenched in smoke, The trumpet's silver sound is still, The warder silent on the hill! Oh, think, how to his latest day, When Death, just hovering, claimed his prey, With Palinure's unaltered mood, Firm at his dangerous post he stood; Each call for needful rest repelled, With dying hand the rudder held, Till, in his fall, with fateful sway, The steerage of the realm gave way! Then, while on Britain's thousand plains, One unpolluted church remains, Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around The bloody tocsin's maddening sound, But still, upon the hallowed day, While faith and civil peace are dear, Grace this cold marble with a tear, He, who preserved them, PITT, lies here! Nor yet suppress the generous sigh, Because his Rival slumbers nigh; Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb. For talents mourn, untimely lost, And feelings keen, and fancy's glow,- And sacred be the last long rest. Here, where the end of earthly things Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue, Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung; As if some angel spoke agen, All peace on earth, good-will to men; If ever from an English heart, O here let prejudice depart, And, partial feeling cast aside, Record, that Fox a Briton died! When Europe crouched to France's yoke, And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, And the firm Russian's purpose brave Was bartered by a timorous slave, The sullied olive-branch returned, Stood for his country's glory fast, And nailed her colours to the mast. |